The Helldivers Balance Situation DRASTICALLY Improved... 

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People saying “too easy” are same people that said, “too hard” and they play on level 5

I actually use a lot of different stratagems and weapons now after the update, which oddly enough is what Arrowhead thought they were trying to accomplish by playing whack-a-mole with nerfing. It's now obvious they were creating METAs by making everything shit instead of trying to bring up the other weapons to par.

The thermite grenade change is the most impactful, in my opinion.

Stim pistol is ultimate S tier meta cuz my teammates hug me when I stim them :)

The same people who say that this game is too easy now are the same people that only played with the meta loadout before.

Never thought I would say this, but the Knight is now one of my favorite primaries even if it's insanely ammo hungry.

Even the Sickle is slapping now. Got shadow-buffed by the zero-recoil update to laser weapons and it MASSIVELY improves your accuracy, which translates to serious TTK improvements because its miserable Durable Dmg means you need to put as many rounds on weak spots as possible to use the Las-16 optimally

The Devs did it, the game is fun again! Finally my team and I can rotate between a lot of loadouts, even suboptimal ones, and still feel we can put up a good fight. We kill a lot. We die a lot. We spend much less time running around trying to evade bug breaches. That's what the game is about!

They should introduce modifiers that affect spawns. For instance heavy unit modifier which shift the amount of heavies spawn more than usual

Firefighters on the bots is the way

The same people who say it’s too easy die immediately on lvl 10. I have a discord friend who says it and he’s always the lowest scorer with the highest death count.

“Don’t buff, only nerf!” Great design

I am having a blast using the Arch Thrower vs bots. Stun locking Hulks or Heavy Devs through their shields feels great.

Im ok with folding like a wet paper bag as long as they fold just as quickly.

People saying things like "Oh yeah a big part of it is feeling like a weak and disposable chump and I love getting through missions by the skin of my teeth with no reinforcements left git gud." are also kind of self-reporting that they needed the buffs in the first place.

The thing with the game difficulty is not the weapons that primarly makes it easy it is the fact that the missions are. You can complete all missions relying on stratagems. I have awfull aim and reaction time but when I played with my friends on lvl 9 and 10 I could run around the map ignoring enemies throwing stratagems and do 40% of objectives alone. They need more escort type missions like the SD drive and make missions that must be completed as a team and missions that are focused for solo players. I would love to see a siege mission where you have a designated drop point and you have to fight through a massive map wide base.

I feel like assault rifles still bad other than that very good update, going towards the right direction.

IMO gas still needs a bit of a buff to be fun to use. My suggestion is: - Increase the duration of the gas proc to 5 seconds - Make enemies deliberately target each other instead of just attacking randomly - Make the Sterilizer leave behind gas clouds

probably one of ur best vids u ever cook.

As someone who stopped playing due to the nerfing, this update has been an absolute blast!

Upping the build diversity, and strong options is huge. I'm so happy that I can run other weapons now that feel good except for the ONE WEAPON that was META per faction like I was doing earlier. That fact that you can try wacky combos and through skill and good build crafting make them very effective is what makes a game like this feel good. Now we just need more quality of life changes, and more content. I need my vehicles already!

The best thing about this update is that nothing feels broken, just the right about of usable. Though, I was hoping *everything* would recieve a buff or change, the stuff that needed it the most got the best changes. Still, the game is genuinely fun again now that I can play stratgem roulette and still have a chance of beating the mission

Yeah the ability to run various interesting loadouts like a full arc build is awesome. Ran that the other day and experiencing all my arc weapons working properly could make a grown man cry. Seeing the blitzer splitting its shot to multiple enemies or putting all on one enemy is great to see. And didnt have a single missfire either. Then the arc thrower hitting things from range, stunning bigger enemies and hitting like an absolute truck... Hooo boy

Helldivers 2 popularity was like a rollercoaster, it risen very early for very long and then took a massive drop but rised and came back

I think everything is balanced now. Except for improving some aspects that help players, like the 110mm rocket pod buff. We don't need mob spawns to be very frequent, mob spawns are already balanced in difficulty, the game should give you the opportunity to destroy the spawning horde.

it's actually easier now. I havent failed a single lv 10 mission since the patch, I cleared a full map 100% with a squad of two... it's actually easier now, I'm not complaining though, it's still fun as hell

I'm glad you're able to find fun with the game again, Thicc!. As for me, that ship sailed with all the discourse that went down some months back, and I eventually lost interest in the game and moved onto other games in my backlog (also playing more co-op games with my partner this yr). I honestly don't feel like hopping back on, mostly due to performance reasons, but also because I lost trust/interest with the game itself. I just hope that AH learned a really valuable lesson from all this, and going forward with their next game, I may check it out, hoping that I won't lose interest in whatever new game they come up with down the road.

they were dragged kicking and screaming to this state. We'll have to wait to see how it shakes out and whether they can keep a steady state

“Stalkers in bug breaches” *shudders*

The gas nades work on tanks? That makes them super powerful haha

Meta only appear when there is only one option is viable, but when everything is viable then it erases the meta and creates many options to choose from and mixmatch. DRG is the best example: every weapon is viable thus we can change loadout every time.

maybe they could add, that when we call the pelican loads of bile titan will spawn or a boss will try to stop us from extracting. same with the bots.

Has anyone calling the game too easy now ever actually tried max difficulty? Our bones have been turned into literal glass

Stalkers in bug breaches in ABSURD... I love it. :))

cat was like, YAWN, ad read time

14:19 topic aside, The Hulk swatting away your flame with a saw... Pure cinema!

I was running Super Helldive duo with a friend. I honestly think it's harder now. We failed way more.

Everything feels so BALANCED now im actually using stratagems and weapons ive never actually been using for a long time now like the lasar cannon, pray and spray, rail cannon and a whole other stuff And also the enemies feel fair to be honest They really nailed it with the update! Im so happy :D!!

I would LOVE if they added a 3rd person reticule on the AMR

The only thing that keeps me from playing this patch is the health rework... yes we should feel like glass cannons... but armor is once again completely useless. You can die in ONE attack phase in the HUGE green marshmellow 200 stat armor (highest armor in the game btw) from a basic bug (forget the name of them, the brown/black ones low to the ground with sharp claws). This keeps from me enjoying the game, especially on the bots side sorry, if they fix that in the next big patch or during a hotfix I will come back. Some are saying this isnt working correctly and attacks are hitting multiple times in the same animation on multiple limbs... but ya it feels terrible to play... and no I dont care about being one shotted in general or being killed by teammates, just pointing out the huge inconsistency and how it still doesnt feel great to play due to cheap deaths... I have no problem dying to one charger trample or friendly fire or heck even a giant tentacle stab in the heaviest armor!

Difficulty 7 from earlier this week (post patch) felt a lot easier than it did yesterday. I was playing yesterday and the patrols and bot drops were super intense. Were there any changes to spawns between Tuesday and now??

To me the biggest thing they could and should do is reworking the armor buffs, they are too minor or completely build defining, like the resistance to lightning and such. I think they could do things like: mashing together for example: Peak Physical Condition: being the servo assisted + the commando. Leading to a more of a class like approach. And together with this and add way more light, medium or heavy dependent buffs. So more speed related things for light, like technician making all the arrow settings smaller for you, so whenever your ctrl calls could auto end the last two and the painels should start with the first two already done.

What I like more with Thermite nades is that by making them super powerful, but limiting their amount (1 less than before) it indirectly made engineering armor even more appealing.

A huge enemy with a bunch of glowing spots you have to take out for it to die would be a fun way to put a bullet sponge in the game, but keep it interesting

This version of the game has the most weapon variety in the game's history. I see sniper rifles on bug planets. I see incendiary weapons used against the bots. Even the frag grenade may see use on blitz missions to get the most bug holes and fabricators destroyed. one thing that I enjoy of this game is that players are incentivized to plan their loadout to the mission. This is an amazing game design. Players should be rewarded for specializing their loadouts and experimenting based on the threats they face. One thing that I wish for in the future is possibly optional modifiers. That or more positive modifiers. Which make more "Difficult" Missions more likely to be picked. Say players hate the civilian rescue mission, why not give them a modifier like "Automated stratagem deployment" Which cuts down stratagem deployment by 33%. So players are more likely to experiment with slower stratagems like barrages.

On a bug mission I was on the "escort VIPs" objective and two bile titans approached from the elevated ground to the north. I threw an impact to get the fence out of the way, dove and sprayed the flamethrower in their face which lined up perfectly and both died. It felt great and the flamethrower feels so much better than it did before the patch. You can't make everyone happy, I don't know how someone can say the game is too easy if you turn it up to 11 difficulty.

i love being able to take stalwart + jetpack on bugs now and not have to play run away simulator for 40 minutes if it turns out to be a charger heavy enemy table, just bring thermites and i can deal with them if i have to. thermites aren't even op because if literally anyone else on your team has some form of hard AT they will kill whatever it is faster than a thermite will, it's not a real replacement for AT, just a bandaid if you don't bring it

The fire armor should probably work how you said it should. I just wish I could keep my “servo assist” I just like being able to throw things farther

My favorite loadout to take into missions is Guerilla Gorilla armor, HMG and supply backpack. Living out my Jorge from Halo Reach heavy gunner fantasy. I wouldn’t mind if the HMG got a little more love with some future patches. I think it’s pretty helpful on botdives for devastators, striders and hulks, but on bugdives it feels a bit like a glorified primary weapon, rather than a support weapon

Were so back!

Now all they need is to overhaul patrol systems, then they can add all the fair but challenging difficulties they want

When the Flamethrower got nerfed, I genuienly debated whether I should become a full-time botdiver because it was the only thing keeping me going for the bugs and bots were just much easier to deal with. But now that it got rebuffed, I can enjoy bugs again, and I don't even have to give up the support slot. Vulkan lives!

Nursing spewers/bile spewers should be in the modifiers to let squads better prepare what to bring. More enemies should be added with this in mind, instead of locking newer enemies to even higher tiers to add difficulty. The highest difficulty could have both or different combinations.

You didn't have to strawman the people saying the game is too easy. They don't have to be the same group that we're complaining in the past. Grapple with the current argument. It is too easy but the devs have us that expectation so i don't mind it, but don't deny that that it isn't waaaay easier now

Honestly, I think the Eruptor shrapnel is good as it is. If they were going to buff it, maybe it's penetrator? The direct damage it does to the thing it hits? That'd be good.

Dude i had to rewatch a huge portion of the video because i was too focused on the kitty in the background

You gotta consider that most people are playing with randoms. It’s easy to make anything in this game work with a coordinated, skilled team on mics. The recoilless rocket slaughtered heavies even before the patch if you could get someone to team load you. That didn’t mean it was good though. Not discounting your points, just something to add to the discussion.

Now I just need them to double back on a few thingslike the Desert eagle style pistol and whatever that plasma weapon from polar patriots that I used once and never again!

For the first time i go full mag in heavy machine gun to bile titan from 100m away, and it goes down really fast

Easiest thing to do right now for ppl who think its too easy is to just add higher difficulties , not starting to nerf guns again one by one or some similar shit.

The liberator concussive is actually goated now.

Oh we need this harder. It was harder but a bit boring with just two loadouts prepatch. It now feels way more fun and it feels like I'm not constrained to bt and charger specific builds.

I actually like the slower fire rate of the Lib-C. I think a flat damage buff per shot is the answer. Make it kill softer bugs easily and reward accuracy. I’d use it

With everything being viable…I use everything now! I EFFING LOVE IT!

The thermite buff is honestly at least top 3 changes this patch if not my favorite cause it’s allowed me to finally put down the RR/EATs and start using stalwart which I’ve wanted to use since launch but haven’t been able to because of the requirement to bring an AT strat or stick to a teammate that has it like glue. Crossbow as a mini GL with the stalwart/MG has been super fun to use and it’s so nice not having to bring GL pistol for bug holes and having a reliable answer for spewers that has more than 7 rounds for my primary. That’s just one loadout I’ve been using too it feels so freeing being able to change my guns around and not worry about not being able to do anything against a majority of enemies

Exactly, weapons and stratagems shouldn't be tweeked around difficulty, they should be tweeked around fun. You can adjust difficulty in a myriad of ways that don't remove the moment to moment fun, like time limit, reinforcement limit, number and types of enemies, more objectives, harder objectives, etc... It's just dumb design to equate a loadout output to the game difficulty!

I agree that some things could still be buffed and I agree that there are other ways of introducing difficulty because the game is feeling a bit easier now. But I'd rather see the big bulk of devs pivot in the short term to focus on adding more late game stuff like other ways to use samples since we're all full on them: armor colors, weapon skins, etc. Also to make sure they launch the Illuminate in the next 4 months.

Heavy armor does almost nothing vs. bugs now. But the patch is overall a fat W.

I love how people are saying the game is too easy when if anything it has gotten harder. I find myself failing on level 10 more often than before just because you're so squishy. If I play on level 7, though, it's easier than ever (though that may be just because I got better) so I wonder if maybe they're just used to playing lower difficulties.

Meta only exists if you keep nerving things. If you buff, everything, there is no metal

2:50 Couldn't have said it better; I've had SO much fun just trying different things that were otherwise previously off the table, due to those options just not being viable in the least. Really hoping they just keep brining the fun to the other weapons... It's just FUN

I really hope the devs don’t listen too much to the people saying the game is too easy. It was like 65% of the community who wasn’t happy with how the game was being handed. Thats a pretty overwhelming majority. I mean it’s pretty telling seeing how steams numbers dropped to as low as 5k players. I can understand tweaking some stats in the future but for now I like where everything is at now and I hope they focus on adding new content

Amazing patch. Just think my HMG emplacement got hit by the HMG durable damage nerf 😢 Glad to see you going strong! Take care~

Hell, divers has always been fun. People just complained yeah, they Nerf some things but even with that Nerf the game has still been fun…

Let me be clear. I have 386 hours on Helldivers, that's on steam. Got the game right after I saw the Viper Commando's Trailer, solo and with randoms, no mic myself cause broke boy. I'm level 81, did mostly level 4-7's for most my time playing. I am kinda getting my ass beat this update, even by the bugs, they're killin me fast.

Ive used more weapons now than ever before thanks to this update. If this doesnt get the point across that buffing weapons as opposed to nerfing them adds more variety and less meta, then arrowhead is doomed

On your point about PVE games getting easier with time; Some people can't dedicate a ton of time to get good at the higher levels, but the game should feel fun to play no matter what. And Thankfully, it's so much more fun now. It doesn't feel punishing anymore, it feels fair.

The stalwart still feels abit underwhelming, especially for something that takes a support weapon slot. which is a bummer because it feels so satisfying to use when there aren’t medium armor enemies clogging the screen. I still don’t believe a support weapon should be stuck with light pen when we have so many other better options so here’s my (probably shit) idea of how to make it more viable and differentiate the machine guns. Keep stalwart as it is, but give it medium pen. The durable damage in it is already low so it wouldn’t be busted by any means but it would allow the stalwart to actually seem like more than like a juiced liberator. In order to prevent that from creeping in on the MG-43, we’d need to buff both of them. The stalwart does 70 damage while the MG-43 does 80. So if they both had medium pen then everyone would just choose the stalwart over it bc of more ammo and reloads on the move. To make MG still worth taking, we should buff the MG to something like 100-110 damage, with a similar percentage increase to its durable damage. That way it still maintains higher lethality than stalwart to make the stationary reload worth it But I really do love everything they’ve done so far

The armory chat in the discord has the most dense population of delusional people I've ever seen

I see more diversity in loadouts than ever before. AH thought they were fighting the meta but they simply strengthened it. I do feel like the game is a lot easier... But hopefully the new enemies and difficulties will remedy that.

Honestly the people complaining about it being too easy just need a new difficulty so they can go there. That way the fun levels can still be fun, while the higher difficulty evens the playing field a bit more for the bots/bugs for the people that want that. Do this, and you cater to everyone regardless of whatever changes you make down the line. Regarding the history of nerfs, it's hilarious that they thought they could keep doing that forever. Make the favorite weapons worse, everyone uses a new meta, nerf that, everyone migrates again, repeat repeat repeat. Now, with everything buffed and on a level playing field, people can choose their playstyle and have fun how they choose to have fun. The game feels amazing now, and I fully expect many to come back and even some who went to Space Marine 2 will come back because that game is different from HD2 and doesn't scratch the same itch.

Honestly just want to see a weapon level up system like HD1 or weapon attachment system

Still disappointed that the eruptor was not reversed back to when it could kill hulks

Hell yeah! Everything SLAPS now. Game is fun again. Crazy how that works. So many weapons are just a joy to shoot. With this new foundation in place I can see the game reaching new heights in the future. A little short on objective/game mode variety for now, but as long as these guns are feeling this good, I’m here.

This are wonderful news, time to pick up this game again

I held on in hd2 until I maxed out viper commando-warbond. I havent been playing since and it seems there's alot of good stuff in terms of improvement. Though, I'm still a bit iffy, because in the beginning they were so adamant on how they wanted the gameplay feel and this is quite the opposite. So, if this is something they're "forced" to do, and not something they wanted to do, I want to see if this mentality actually lasts before committing more of my time. Good stuff though, and I'm happy that it's revitalizing the game, despite the tumultous balancing and sometimes buggy messes of patches, I sunk hundreds if hours into hd2 and found it to be fun at it's core!

It definitely feels way better and difficulty is fine imo

It's funny how the Heavy Armor with the 80% gas resistance still leaves you at half HP from staying in a gas grenade cloud.

Did the devs bless Thicc with a cat ear helmet for balancing their game for them or something? Where did that thing come from?

Guns are in a really good state right now, what they need to focus is more maps, mixed maps, new modes, new gameplay stuff , undeground complexes in existing maps that would create a completely new experience. Add npc soldiers defending live outposts and crank the enemy numbers to make it more interesting since youre defending with ai soldiers. SO many ideas they could add that are very simple but they are taking way, WAY too long with simple content, like we got one new map in last how many months? and it doesnt even have anything special , its just a swamp....

I don't understand how people asses "game is too easy" when win rates went from 80% to 80% My death count per mission hasn't changed much, and the only real difference between then and now is I boop the snoot of a hulk or dropship with one rocket anywhere. I have a large variety of tools to pick from now, compared to picking from one or two best in class weapon per category. So....👀....yeah....if build diversity is 'easy mode' and a cookie cutter meta is 'good' then color me confused

The liberator line of guns should have insane amounts of ammo. Imo they are designed to be the first guns a cadet uses, so their aim and composure are going to be at their worst-so 100 rounds of ammo or even more means their dogsht aim is heavily compensated for. And late game it means their low dps is compensated with your better aim and bottomless ammo

Big step in the right direction. I do hope they add more difficulties to keep up the challenge. There are also some weapons that still need small buffs. Increase the mag size of the ARs by about 10 rounds. Increase the liberator penetrator mag by 5 rounds etc. Love the liberator concussive change but it needs a bit more power or fire rate to keep it more viable.

Man I’ve been having a lot more fun and sparked my interest again! This update is a W! 🥂

So so so so spot on. If you keep nerfing everything, you don't get diversity. It just means everything sucks. Now that they have buffed everything, everything is fun again so any weapon can and will be used which actually contributes to diversity.

I’m not being kicked from games for not bringing the “meta” anymore. Things have been more fun than they have ever been.

How the f people say game is easy. Bots starting level 8 is insane. Bugs on 10 is constant shooting. But you now what? Its now fun to do it, i change my loadout every time to try things that work for me, and just to try them out, and I actually dont feel weak vs enemy. This is how its suposed to be!

I used the spray and prey against the bugs, that gun is so much better. Counter sniper is a good gun against both bugs and bots. Recoilless is awesome too.

Dog breath targeting needs some polish